A poster style that has been made famous by the Star Wars franchise where all main characters are montaged into a column or pyramid. Often the characters are sized in proportion to their impact on the plot with the leading cast being shown largest and higher up the stack.
Compare Floating Head Syndrome where heads are used instead of full bodies. May also include an Evil Overlooker if the topmost character is an oversized version of the villain's face. Compare Scooby Stack when a similar pose is assumed by characters in-universe.
Not to be confused with posters of characters who are the other kind of stacked.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Birds of Prey:
- #12
: Black Canary, Catwoman, Oracle, a disguised parademon, and a train are all depicted arranged on the cover at various sizes.
- Vol 1 #37: Robin, Black Canary, and Blue Beetle are stacking in a sort of floating arrangement on the cover.
- Vol 1 #91: Huntress, Oracle and a blindfolded man are stacked at various sizes lighted by a spotlight on the center of the cover.
- Vol 2 #10: The cover depicts a veiled Barbara holding the Oracle mask with Black Canary, Huntress, Lady Blackhawk, Batgirl, Red Robin, Robin V, Hawk and Dove, and both Batmen stacked in fighting stances behind her.
- #12
Fan Works
- The Legend of Genji: The poster for Book One◊ features all six main characters stacked in a column with Genji at the bottom, Nami and Aiko in the lower-middle row, Maya and Kalsang in the upper-middle row, and finally Luan at the top.
Films — Animated
- A poster for Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Tiger Prowess shows the different characters stacked on top of each other, with Lord Japper as an evil overlooker with lightning near him.
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie's final poster depicts the various Mario characters stacked on top of each other, with Bowser evilly glaring down at them.
Films — Live-Action
- Star Wars:
- The poster for Return of the Jedi features a strong vertical axis of Leia—Han Solo—Luke Skywalker—Darth Vader.
- The posters of Attack of the Clones from the Prequel Trilogy has Jango Fett on the bottom, Padme and Obi-Wan above him and Anakin Skywalker on top.
- The Sequel Trilogy is expressively using the style as seen in the poster for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The poster for Iron Man has all major players stacked upon another.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)'s poster is composed as a pyramid of the main cast with Star-Lord on top.
- Thor: Ragnarok has some sort of Russian Nesting Doll action going on.
- The film poster for Black Panther shows all major characters piled up in a pyramid.
- Avengers: Infinity War's poster has many of the featured superheroes being put in a stack, with Thanos as the Evil Overlooker on top.
- The poster of Cloud Atlas has all main characters stacked upon another with the face of Tom Hank's character on top.
- Blade Runner 2049's poster shows all major players in a stack consisting of the villain Niander Wallace, holographic Joi and the two protagonists K and Deckard.
- The poster for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales shows a stack of five major characters with Jack Sparrow in the center and the villain on top.
- The movie poster for Arrival shows the three major characters stacked into a column where the size of the characters indicates the importance to the plot.
- This◊ theatrical poster for X-Men: Apocalypse shows the X-Men and the Horsemen of Apocalypse grouped in the center, with the main villain himself as an Evil Overlooker.
- The poster for the film adaptation of Same Kind of Different as Me has the four main characters stacked upon another.
- Ready Player One (2018)'s poster has the cast piled up around the Easter Egg.
- Deadpool 2's poster has the main cast stacked in a cloud.
- The poster for Mandy (2018) gives us a pyramid filled up with the characters, the protagonist Red (Nicolas Cage) in the center and the Decoy Protagonist Mandy on top.
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has the three main characters in a rough pyramid formation.
- The film poster◊ for Amistad shows the main characters piled up on the left-hand side.
- The poster for Terminator: Dark Fate shows the cast in a column, with the villains on the bottom and the heroes on top.
- One of the two main posters for The Expendables 2 (the other, like the other two movies, had just everyone side by side).
- The Innocent (2022): The English-language poster◊ positions protagonist Abel at the top and stacks Sylvie/Michel and Clémence below him.
Live-Action TV
- Metal Hurlant Chronicles has a poster◊ that shows all the characters from the various non-connected episodes stacked together against the backdrop of a planet and outer space.
- The season 2 poster for Stranger Things depicts the entire cast aligned in a column, with the alien Big Bad hovering above them.
- The poster of Black Mirror's Star Trek-parody episode "USS Callister" looks like an homage to the Star Wars posters with all the characters stacked into a column with the villain right in the center.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power released posters with a pyramid of the main cast with Galadriel being on top◊ for the first season.
Pro Wrestling
- WrestleMania:
- The poster from XV has three rows: The Rock, The Big Show and The Undertaker in the top row, Triple H and Mankind in the middle row, and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in the bottom row.
- 2000 has two rows: The Big Show, Shane McMahon, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in the top row, and Mick Foley, Linda McMahon, The Rock, and Vince McMahon in the bottom row.
- XIX has also several stacked wrestlers: The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Sable (?), Trish Stratus (?), Triple H (top), Shawn Michaels, Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan (top-middle), Booker T, The Undertaker (bottom-middle), Stone Cold Steve Austin, Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle (bottom).
- The upper half of 23 has two rows: Bobby Lashley, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Umaga at the top, and Donald Trump and Vince McMahon at the bottom.
- XXIV has The Big Show and professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the top, and a V-formation at the bottom: Triple H, Randy Orton, John Cena, Edge and The Undertaker.
- XXX has Hulk Hogan (top), Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt (top-middle), Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Batista (bottom-middle), Triple H, The Undertaker and Randy Orton (bottom).
- 33 has a lot of superstars, too many to count.
- 34 has even more superstars than 33.
- The poster from XV
Western Animation
- The poster for ThunderCats Roar takes this to its literal conclusion: everyone is stacked on top of each other in a big tower of violence, with Lion-O at the top holding the Sword of Omens.
